


Eowyn and Faramir, in the Gardens

by primsong



Category: Lord of the Rings - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Poetry, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-04
Updated: 2010-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-12 10:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primsong/pseuds/primsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A set of three poems, in the garden of the Houses of Healing and then the garden of Ithilien. For Eowyn, I chose a more flowing, thoughtful tone. Faramir receives a military structure, and the third is treated with more 'romantic' poetic imagery.</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. Strange Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A set of three poems, in the garden of the Houses of Healing and then the garden of Ithilien. For Eowyn, I chose a more flowing, thoughtful tone. Faramir receives a military structure, and the third is treated with more 'romantic' poetic imagery.

**Strange Comfort**   
_  
(Eowyn in the Garden)  
_

Grey-white walls enclose so few living things,  
There is little green or open in this city of stone.  
The benches dream of green, with their mossy carvings,  
But they too, are cold and hard and lonely when touched.  
Above, more buildings, and above that the mountain peaks...  
No, there is no escaping being overshadowed in such a place.  
Overshadowed...aye...  
Somewhere just over there, nearby, under golden cloth my leige lies dead.  
Taken in his moment of glory, overshadowed by...no,  
No. I will not think upon such things.  
I must turn my mind to other thoughts lest that darkness return for  
I would not have the gift of light given me so soon despised.  
Commanded to live. It is a strange thought - yet I feel it.  
Kept from a clean and honorable death, I must endure it somehow.  
This is my battle now. Finding some way to live.  
Shattered pieces of dreams only wound if I touch them.

The nighttime is dark though cleaner than it has been.  
I had almost forgotten that darkness could be clean.  
Though the moon whispers to me of the late hour,  
Yet I would stay just a little, to look out upon the city,  
To breathe the sharp freshness of mountain snows above.  
I do not turn when I hear his steps.  
The Captain, now Steward, coming once more to me.  
He who has also borne great troubles; a strange comfort to me.  
Brought out of death, he struggles to find his life as I do.  
A gift he received from the same hands and voice.

The wind is cold, stirring in his dark hair as he stands beside me  
Following my gaze over the garden wall.  
Each day, each night it has been the same. Often we speak not at all.  
There is a strange comfort in it, his silences and small words;  
We are leaders without followers for a time, a fragile time.  
I do not look to be treated gently yet he does so anyway,  
And somehow I find no offense. Perhaps it is because he does not  
Question my strength, or my thoughts, or my silences.  
He does not question who I am or how I came to be here.  
We simply walk together, heal together.  
Why do I look for him each evening? He warms me with a glance.  
A strange comfort for me, knowing this warmth without a touch,  
To feel safe when he is near, I who have never asked for safety.

"Walk with me." He says, and I do.  
Inside my heart I look askance at myself.  
What of my own people? My own ambitions?  
Yet... I want to walk in the garden with him,  
To walk and wander and to have it never end.  
To live in a garden  
With him at my side, forever.


	2. Faramir in the Garden

**Faramir in the Garden**

These mossy walls, their stones are old.  
More open lands you love, perhaps.  
Here, walk beside me. You look cold;  
Around your shoulders, please, draw this wrap.

Do you remember Grey Mithrandir?  
With the learned I have studied.  
Ah, for his wisdom! If it were mine,  
Would my hands have stayed unbloodied?

Could I find in books salvation?  
Do not believe all wisdom's arms;  
I lift my sword up for my nation,  
But learning deflects deeper harms.

Deeper harms with wounds that linger.  
If hearts are strong, bodies will heal.  
You and I, we know they mingle,  
We know despair's sword, sharp and real.

My father loved my elder brother,  
When I was small I saw his smile.  
He sometimes even smiled for others,  
But not for me, his younger child.

My brother taken from his side,  
My father's sharpness cut my heart.  
Though I had thought to stem that tide,  
To harden feelings, set apart...

Defenses he always perceived,  
Relentless force, his comments pierced.  
Would he have brought me to my knees?  
I tried to please; he remained fierce.

Oh father, why was there no blessing?  
Why did you turn your face from me?  
If I gave my life, never resting  
Would my brother's smile be given me?

Mithrandir told me father loved me,  
That he would show it nigh his end,  
Why did his approval drive me  
To his will, my own to bend?

Now he lays in ash, no longer  
Can I reach him. But his voice...  
I remember it grew stronger  
After he had made his choice.

Fragments I remember, dry wood...  
Smoke-scent, soft oil. Then the flames...  
And somewhere in that fire, I could  
Hear my father scream my name.

Tangled thoughts and tangled feelings,  
Through my fevered mind they've wandered.  
Dire events - I still am reeling,  
Come, walk with me, and let me ponder.

These are dark times, do not mind me;  
My words stumble without a grace.  
Thank you for your listening silence,  
The quiet moonlight on your face.


	3. Ithilien Sunset

**Ithilien Sunset**

Lips of rose, the sweetest taste of summer bees;  
Beeswax tapers flicker and pool late this warm evening.  
Wooden sun dipping into honeyed clouds at end of day,  
Red as berries crushed between a child's teeth.  
Golden thread and pale hands,  
Waterfall's crescents and circles of moonlight move in the water.  
Blackened wood and rotting bark, spongy mulch and river mould.  
The scents are heady, the sights beyond dreaming.  
Walk with me, beloved.

Up towards the mountains, in the winter  
Silver-edged fir trees shall whisper with a burden of snow,  
Silence and muffle the wood under its woolen cloak.  
Sharp-edged ice-crusts shall cut the fetters of starving deer  
Leaving their red-lace droplets in the snow.  
A merciless beauty found as readily in the shapely curve of bone  
As in rising moon or scented bud.  
Out upon the plains, the wind shall mourn the frozen grasses,  
And all life breathe softly, deep in burrows or bowers.  
In the wood, the cry of the hunted echoes in the silence.

But then the springtime will come, beloved.  
Amid pungent needles matted under moss, soft as any lover's bower.  
Fern will uncurl, hiding last season's crumpled remains under a new green.  
Life embracing death, as is the way of this world.  
Saw-toothed grasses, blades that could steal away a life  
Will rustle softly in the shade, sheathed in bindweed and creeping vine.  
The scars of war will begin to fade. The fountains will find their voices.  
How soft is this early winter night, past the summer's  
Remembered warmth, flitting dreams of light.  
The new life you have brought stirs within me.  
A ruined garden once, but we shall tend it, you and I  
And make our home beneath its fragrant boughs.


End file.
